The ventilation system Shadow and I had used to reach Luna stretched on for miles all around the facility, and it was what we were crawling through at the moment.

Luna had given us a map and some tools needed to remove Tia’s power core, as well as food and water.

I once again thanked Queen Novo that I wasn’t claustrophobic, otherwise, this ordeal would have been a nightmare. The vent we were currently travelling in was only about three meters wide by three meters tall and had a slight upward tilt, making us slip and slide occasionally.

Neither of us spoke, as retaining our grip on the slick floor took all of our concentration.

Eventually, the path evened out as it came to an intersection. We took a break to rest and eat, checking the map as well. Though it was hard to read, I could say with reasonable certainty that we were about halfway. From here we’d take a right and up a ladder, putting us on the same level as Tia. After that would come the hard part. To get to the next section we will have to pass through a small workshop covered in cameras.

The back of the map showed where all the cameras were, and how to avoid them, but I was still worried. Not just for me, but Ashaa. Once again I had failed to protect her. And this time she’d never fly again. I was a terrible brother, not even capable of keeping her safe.

As I sullenly ate a piece of slightly stale bread, Rainbow Dash materialized and put a comforting hoof on my shoulder. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew she was there.

"Don't beat yourself up too much Blitz, you're both still alive, and that's what matters."

What matters is that my sister stays safe, something I obviously can't do.

"As long as you do your best, then you have nothing to be ashamed of!"

I don't think you understand.

"Alright, we've been here long enough. Let's get going." Shadow said, interrupting my mental conversation. I nodded and stood up, picking up the remains of my meal. Just as the map described, we found a ladder. Going up it revealed a new part of the facility that we'd never been to before:

The sweatshop.

That's what the map called it, the only difference between this place and an actual sweatshop was the lack of living beings working to death. Unlike the rest of the lab, sanitary measures appeared to have been thrown out the figurative window, as no real ones could be seen. The steel walls were covered in grime, untouched by cleaning appliances since before the fallout. Instead of a clean blue colour, the lights were a sickly dark yellow, making distorted shadows out of the surrounding machinery. The only clean things in here were the lenses of the security cameras, which had cute little window wipers attached to them. The rest of the device was left to rust, however.

"Okay, once we get through here, we're golden," I said softly. Luna had told us that the cameras couldn't pick up audio, but I wasn't going to take any chances. Together Shadow and I picked our way through the mighty machines as they made products for long-dead ponies. I could see prosthetic limbs, power tools, and weapons of varying calibre being produced. I nabbed a small pistol that had fallen off its conveyor belt and stuffed it in my Inventory after checking it for ammo, you never know when something like that could be useful.

As usual, something went wrong about three-quarters of the way in. We followed the map religiously until we ran into a massive pit of some kind of unsavoury glowing liquid. A single frail-looking bridge that lacked railings was the only way across its expanse.

A cursory glance into the room showed no signs of any surveillance cameras, so Shadow went out first. The metal bridge creaked ominously as he crossed over to the vault style door on the other end. After opening the door and taking a quick check to make sure it was safe Shadow motioned for me to cross.

I debated just flying across, but remembered the blades that had come out of the walls when Ashaa tried to escape and thought better of it. Besides, Shadow was a little heavier than me, so in theory, the rickety bridge should hold my weight. I took a tentative step onto it without any trouble, so I took another. Though it creaked, I doubted it would collapse. I began to walk a little faster, still cautious.

Unfortunately, when I was about ten meters away from the door, one of Tia’s little worker drones flew through a small hatch in the wall. I didn’t have the time to get to the door before it spotted me, so in a split second decision I pulled out my recently acquired pistol and shot it twice, once in its main propeller, and once in its camera. It fell into the vat of green goo with a wet ploop! as it quickly dissolved. The sharp crack! sound of my gun ricocheted around the room and up into the darkness above us. We just had to hope Tia would think the drone just broke, but with my luck, she already knew we were here.

“We gotta go, kid, if Tia decides to check that out we better be long gone,” Shadow said as he grabbed my shoulder with his magic. I let him pull me through the vault door before I came to my senses and nodded and started walking by myself.

We were back into the sterile blue and white rooms I had gotten used to. From what I remembered of the map we needed to hop into the next vent we saw, which happened to be a little crawl space. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but such a confined space would make just about anyone uncomfortable. Shadow unbolted the vent cover and I took the lead, letting him reattach the cover behind us.

For a small eternity, we crawled through the dust and cobwebs, the space too small to even take a deep breath. Just when I was about to say we should go back, I saw an exit around the corner. I crawled as fast as possible towards it, not caring what was on the other side as long as there was room to breathe.

Thankfully my good luck hadn’t yet run out today, I found myself in a massive intersection with at least twenty different tunnels of varying size. Some were more crawl spaces while others were large enough to fit a small tank. I had to sit down for a second to take a few deep breaths. Then, taking note of what vent we had exited, I took out the map and figured out where we were and which path to take next.

While I did this, Shadow paced across the large room while taking out his revolver and a few tools and began cleaning it.

Clink!

Out of nowhere, a sound came from a tunnel to my left. Shadow and I immediately snapped our heads towards the entrance.

Clink!

There it was again! I couldn’t tell yet what the noise was, probably just an old pipe or something. Though I couldn’t be sure.

clink!

This time the sound was farther away, moving down the tunnel. Then it stopped, and the sound came back towards us. The low hiss of radio static could now be heard coming from that direction as well.

Shadow stopped pacing and put away his newly serviced handgun with a grimace.

“We need to go.” he said quietly, “Which path do we take?”

I quickly checked the map and pointed towards the shaft directly across from the static tunnel. Shadow nodded and took the lead. I picked up my stuff and silently followed him.

As we travelled, the constant hiss of static would occasionally grow louder and softer. Whatever it was, it was following us.

Several hours later, the sound had continued to grow, and we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Since backtracking wasn't an option, we plotted out a path that would put us back on course. Our first attempt backfired as a vent had collapsed, thus forcing us to take an even longer route.

Soon the static was accompanied by the sharp sound of metallic hooves as the clinking noise returned and became more frequent. We were almost back on course, our second try seemed to be going well, no damaged vents or other hazards. But the fear of whatever was behind us slowly grew, until I found myself almost hyperventilating. I mentally paused and calmed down, as long as it didn’t catch up with us we were fine. I nodded to myself and caught up to Shadow, realizing I had been lagging behind.

Just as we reached the path that led to Tia, one final obstacle appeared. A section of the ventilation shaft had fallen out onto the ground far below. It looked like a work crew had started repairing it before the bombs fell, there was a lot of scaffolding along the walls as well as tools, building supplies, and a few discarded lunchboxes. While it would be difficult, I knew we could traverse the gap. Shadow glanced back to make sure I was ready and began elegantly jumping from one platform to the next, avoiding any that looked unstable. I followed close behind.

The scaffolding creaked ominously as we crossed, but held firm, soon enough I was standing on the other side. Just as I began walking towards Shadow I heard something clatter behind me, at first I dismissed it as a tool or something that had fallen off a platform. Until a bullet whizzed past my head, hitting the wall next to me with a loud Crack!

Shadow and I both quickly turned around to find a disturbing sight on the other side of the chasm.

It was vaguely equine in appearance, with a metallic white coat that was dented and scratched. Its eyes were a vibrant neon red that glowed softly in the darkness. It had a tarnished synthetic rainbow coloured mane and tail that was torn out and ripped in places. One of the thing’s ears was broken off, emitting the loud static sound we had been hearing. It narrowed its eyes and though it had no mouth, it spoke from a small speaker in its chest.

"Gotcha." Was all it said in a robotic female voice, before two large guns emerged from its back with a loud Click! and opened fire.

I immediately ducked as bullets flew over me. Shadow had enough sense to start shooting back, though his overpowered revolver barely dented its coat. After a few seconds of blindly shooting over our heads, the machine took a second to recalibrate, crouching down to our level to get a better angle on us.

"Hello friend."

We both jumped up and ran down the tunnel as it fired another volley. Thankfully there was a turn close by. The second we were out of sight the shooting stopped.

"Is anyone there?" The machine said. I could hear it beginning to follow us, its metal hooves making a strange clanging sound on the scaffolding behind us. I ran as fast as possible down the cramped hallway, the mechanical monster close behind.

Finally, we entered a large lab of some sorts. the tables were covered in scientific equipment, blueprints, and a few discarded prototypes of the thing following us. Shadow ran off towards a small shooting range in the left corner of the room, taking cover behind a blast shield. Almost as soon as I joined him we heard what I suspected was a DASH-E unit enter the room.

"Are you still there?" I was getting pretty unnerved by the way it was talking to us as if it was playtime.

"Get out that big gun of yours, see if that works on it," Shadow whispered, "I'll distract it while you take the shot."

He then proceeded to jump over the barrier and began shooting at it with a yell.

"I see you." The robot replied, returning the fire. I knew Shadow couldn't keep that up forever, so I pulled out Ifrinn as fast as possible and loaded it with some armour piercing rounds. The DASH-E stood still as it fired, and was close by, so I was pretty confident I could make the shot.

Using the canted iron sights instead of the scope I carefully aimed, and fired right above its head. thankfully it was too occupied with Shadow to notice me so I aimed again, even more carefully this time, and shot it in the eye. It stopped shooting and began to twitch violently.

"No hard feelings." Were its last words before collapsing onto the ground, the static sound now gone. I put away my gun and walked over to where I had last seen Shadow. He stood up from behind a worktable and holstered his weapon. I noticed that he was bleeding profusely from his right foreleg.

"You alright? I still have a couple of Ashaa's potions." I said, worried. Shadow shrugged, grabbing a roll of paper towels from a nearby table and wrapping it around the wound.

"I'll be fine, where to next? we have to be close by now." I nodded and pulled out the map, glancing back at him occasionally to make sure he wasn't going to pass out on me. When I saw where we were I gasped, both relieved and nervous.

"We're quite close, actually, just through that door and down some stairs." Shadow hopped off his perch on the table and began walking towards the door without even a hint of a limp. Either he'd taken some combat drugs, or had a really high pain tolerance. Either way, it was time to face Tia.

Footnote:

Quest progress: In a rich colt's world: 3,075/10,000 caps Time limit: 27 days remaining.
Quest completed! Survive the Gauntlet: Reward 250 EXP!
Level Up! +25 to health, +15 to combat knowledge.

Author's Note

Hello again! I hope ya'll are having fun with all my portal references. Again thank you to all of you who support me and this story.

-ABloodthirstyUnicorn.